Juan Guillermo Riperdá, duque de Riperdá

Juan Guillermo Riperdá, duque de Riperdá, in full Juan Guillermo Riperdá, duque de Riperdá, barón de Riperdá, original Dutch name Johan Willem Ripperda, (born March 7, 1680/82, Oldehove, Groningen [now in the Netherlands]—died Nov. 5, 1737, Tétouan, Mor.), political adventurer and Spanish minister during the reign of Philip V.

Apparently born a Roman Catholic of a noble family, he conformed to Dutch Calvinism in order to obtain his election as delegate to the States General from Groningen. In 1715 he was sent by the Dutch government as ambassador to Madrid, where he soon went over to the Spanish side and professed himself a Roman Catholic. He first attached himself to Giulio Alberoni, and after the fall of that minister he became the agent of Isabella Farnese, Philip V’s intriguing wife, whose influence over her husband was boundless and who continually schemed to secure the succession to Parma, Piacenza, and Tuscany for her sons. In 1725 Riperdá was created a duke and sent as special envoy to Vienna, where, after 10 months of very strange diplomacy, he secured a treaty by which the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI promised very little, but Spain was bound to pay heavy subsidies, which its exhausted treasury was quite unable to afford.

When Riperdá returned to Madrid at the close of 1725, he asserted that the emperor expected him to be made prime minister, and the credulous Spanish sovereigns allowed him to grasp the most important posts under the crown. He excited the violent hostility of the Spaniards and entered into a complicated series of intrigues with the French and English governments. It was discovered that Riperdá not only had made promises that he was not authorized to make but had misappropriated large sums of money. Riperdá was dismissed and soon afterward imprisoned in the castle of Segovia. In 1728 he escaped, probably with the connivance of the government, and made his way to Holland. His last years are obscure, though it is known that he went to Morocco, where he became a Muslim and eventually died.